Part 2 — He Wouldn’t Stop Watching Her
(Part 1) ➡️ https://storiesworld.us/archives/10280
Kelly slowly took her seat, trying not to make it obvious that she felt uneasy.
Across the table, her uncle sat perfectly still. Everyone else was talking over one another, laughing as dishes of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce were passed around the table. Yet amid all the noise and conversation, he remained silent.
It wasn’t the kind of silence that came from shyness.
It was as though he simply had no interest in being part of the family gathering.
Kelly tried convincing herself she was imagining things. After all, the man had been missing for years. Maybe whatever had happened to him had changed his personality. Anyone would be different after going through something like that.
Still, something didn’t feel right.
Throughout dinner, she caught him staring at her again and again.
Whenever she glanced across the table, his eyes were already fixed on her. They didn’t wander around the room or follow the conversation. They remained locked on her with an intensity that made her increasingly uncomfortable.
Several times she looked away, hoping it would stop.
It never did.
Trying to distract herself, Kelly focused on the conversations taking place around the table. Her cousins joked with one another, her grandmother complained that nobody was eating enough, and one of her uncles told an embarrassing story from years earlier that had everyone laughing.
Everyone…
Except him.
He never laughed.
He barely smiled.
Every so often someone asked him another question about where he had been all those years.
His answers never changed.
“I travelled.”
“I kept moving.”
“I needed time.”
The responses were so vague that eventually people stopped asking.
It was almost as though the family had decided that having him back mattered more than understanding where he had gone.
Kelly couldn’t understand it.
If someone disappeared for years without a word, wouldn’t everyone want answers?
Apparently not.
As dinner continued, she noticed something else.
Her uncle never seemed to eat very much.
Food had been piled onto his plate like everyone else’s, yet he barely touched it. He cut small pieces from the turkey, moved vegetables around with his fork, and occasionally lifted a bite to his mouth, but he never appeared to actually enjoy the meal.
It looked more like someone pretending to eat than someone who was hungry.
At one point, Kelly happened to glance beneath the table while reaching for a napkin.
Her uncle’s shoes were covered in dried mud.
That, by itself, wasn’t unusual.
But there were dark stains around the bottoms of his trousers as well, as though he had recently walked through wet earth or marshland.
She frowned.
He had arrived wearing clean clothes.
Where had the stains come from?
Before she could think about it any longer, her grandmother stood and announced that dessert was ready.
The atmosphere in the house immediately became lively again.
People carried empty plates into the kitchen while others gathered in the living room to drink coffee and continue talking.
Kelly quietly slipped away to help clear the table.
For a while, she managed not to think about her uncle at all.
Then she walked back into the living room.
He was sitting in exactly the same chair.
He hadn’t joined the conversations.
He hadn’t moved to help anyone.
He simply remained in the corner, watching the room in complete silence.
As Kelly crossed the room, she felt his eyes follow her.
The sensation made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
She hurried into the hallway, trying to ignore the feeling.
A few minutes later, while carrying a stack of dishes toward the kitchen, she passed the living-room doorway again.
The chair was empty.
She stopped walking.
For the first time all evening, her uncle wasn’t there.
She looked toward the kitchen.
He wasn’t helping with the dishes.
She glanced into the dining room.
Nothing.
The downstairs bathroom door stood open.
No one was inside.
A strange feeling settled over her.
The house wasn’t particularly large.
There were only a few places he could have gone.
Trying not to seem obvious, she asked one of her cousins, “Have you seen Uncle?”
Her cousin shrugged.
“I thought he was with you.”
Kelly looked back toward the empty chair.
Only moments earlier, she could have sworn he had been sitting there.
Now he had disappeared without anyone noticing.
She told herself he had probably stepped outside for some fresh air.
That explanation made sense.
Yet as she looked toward the front window, she realised something odd.
His coat was still hanging by the front door.
Before she could investigate any further, she heard footsteps coming down the hallway behind her.
She turned.
Her uncle was standing there.
He hadn’t made a sound until that moment.
He simply smiled—a small, expressionless smile—and quietly walked past her as though nothing unusual had happened.
Kelly watched him return to the same chair in the corner of the living room.
He sat down.
Folded his hands in his lap.
And once again…
Started watching her.
(Continued in Part 3) ➡️ https://storiesworld.us/archives/10283